With increasing demand for faster, more powerful and more efficient ways to store information, optimization of storage technologies is becoming a key challenge.
Logical data objects (data files, image files, data blocks, etc.) may be transformed for transmission and/or storage purposes. The transformation may comprise compression, encryption, encoding, conversion, etc. and/or combinations thereof. For example, data compression techniques are used to reduce the amount of data to be stored or transmitted in order to reduce the storage capacity and transmission time respectively. Compression may be achieved by using different compression algorithms known in the art. Data stored in plaintext is further open to potential malicious use (e.g. unauthorized access, misuse, theft, etc.), and known in the art solutions for perimeter and/or access control (e.g. firewalls, Virtual Private Networks, LUN masking control and zoning in SAN storage networks, NAS security control features, etc.) still leave security vulnerabilities. Encrypting data to be stored may considerably reduce security threats; such encryption may be provided by using different algorithms known in the art. Encoding and/or converting the logical objects or parts thereof may, by way of non-limiting example, facilitate increased network reliability, effectiveness and/or flexibility (e.g. for mobile, broadcast, and video and similar applications).